Oswald and the CIA: The Documented Truth About the Unknown Relationship Between the U.S. Government and the Alleged Killer of JFK (5 page)

These observations weighed heavily in Snyder's abiding impression that Oswald's defection had been carefully planned.

In a November 1963 memorandum, Snyder's colleague McVickar said it was possible that Oswald had read books he did not understand. Nevertheless, McVickar argued,

... it seemed that it could also have been that he had been taught to say things which he did not really understand. In short, it seemed to me that there was a possibility that he had been in contact with others before or during his Marine Corps tour who had guided him and encouraged him in his actions.57

McVickar argued that there seemed the possibility that Oswald "was following a pattern of behavior in which he had been tutored by person or persons unknown."38

Who were these "persons unknown," and how did they know what Snyder would or would not do? Something about the way Oswald was using pat phrases about Marxism along with his reference to "papers to sign" led Snyder and McVickar to conclude that Oswald had only incomplete knowledge of such intellectual and legal matters. Snyder says he retains a "strong impression" that Oswald "used simple Marxist stereotypes without sophistication or independent formulation. `9

Both Snyder and McVickar thought at the time that Oswald might have been "tutored" before appearing at the consulate, and both today continue to believe that Oswald's performance that October Saturday in 1959 was carefully planned. Oswald's stated intent to turn over military secrets should be considered in this context. If someone did help Oswald plan his defection, this someone might also have told Oswald to threaten to reveal military secrets.

Oswald's statements about radar secrets and "something special" were the most significant part of the defection event. Such behavior is difficult to imagine of an ex-marine. "I certainly did not expect anyone in his position to make a statement that he was disloyal to the U.S.," Snyder explained.60 McVickar told Oswald biographer Edward J. Epstein that it was the part of the conversation where Oswald said he was going to turn over classified radar information that "raised hackles."" McVickar summed up his recollection for the Warren Commission in this way:

He [Oswald] mentioned that he knew certain classified things in connection with having been, I think, a radar operator in the Marine Corps, and that he was going to turn this information over to the Soviet authorities. And, of course, we didn't know how much he knew or anything like that, but this obviously provoked a rather negative reaction among us Americans in the consulate section.B2

Again, both witnesses to this performance by Oswald emphasize its unusual nature, especially with regard to military secrets.

Part of what made Oswald's stated intent to reveal state secrets so remarkable is that it had not been solicited. Snyder had made no attempt to probe for intelligence or espionage-related information. "He volunteered this statement," Snyder testified before the Warren Commission in 1964. "It was rather peculiar."63 Peculiar indeedto walk into an American Embassy anywhere in the world, let alone Moscow at the height of the Cold War, and to announce, in the presence of American consular officials, one's intent to commit a deliberate act of espionage is an extraordinary act. However, perhaps because Oswald did not specifically "claim to possess knowledge or information of [a] highly classified nature," Snyder was content to get out of the embassy that Saturday afternoon and deal with the mess the following week. Nevertheless, Snyder knew without ques tion that, at the very least, Oswald was "declaring [his] intention [to] commit a disloyal act."64 Before going home that same Saturday afternoon, Snyder cabled this news to Washington.6S

The serious nature of Oswald's threats and their consequences may be the reason he chose not to return for his renunciation papers after that Saturday morning. If his speech was for the Soviets, it had served its purpose, and Oswald could not be sure how the Americans would react. If he had thought this part of it through, he would have to have realized that the Defense Department and the CIA would treat his situation not as a simple defection but as a security matter requiring a careful investigation. Oswald could not rule out the possibility that if he returned, the marine guard on duty, rather than ushering him in to see Snyder, might instead take him into custody for questioning.

On Tuesday, November 3, Oswald wrote a letter to the U.S. embassy protesting his treatment in Snyder's office the previous Saturday. "I appeared in person, at the consulate office of the United States embassy, Moscow, on Oct. 31st, for the purpose of signing the formal papers" for the revocation of his American citizenship. "This legal right I was refused at that time."66 He protested this and the "conduct of the official," i.e., Richard Snyder. The letter arrived at the embassy on Friday, November 6, and Snyder sent a reply on the following Monday, November 9,67 having informed the State Department about it in the meantime.68 In his reply to Oswald, Snyder invited him to come back "anytime during normal business hours."

Snyder was not the only person in Moscow sending cables to Washington about Oswald's espionage intentions. While Oswald sat in his hotel room writing his letter of protest to the embassy, the naval attache in the embassy was also writing a confidential cable, in this case to the chief of Naval Operations in the Pentagon. The determination that this ex-marine was no simple defector but in truth a self-declared saboteur arrived at the Navy Department the next morning, November 3, 1963. Like Snyder's October 31 cable, the navy attache's cable was very short. It invited attention to the embassy's reporting on the defections of Oswald and another ex-navy man, and added only one thing: that Oswald had offered to furnish the Soviets information on U.S. radar.69

Whatever Oswald's thinking might or might not have been, there is little question about the thinking in Washington, D.C. It did not take long for the naval attache's message from Moscow to set off alarm bells at the Navy Department. There the cable was routed by a person named Hamner in the Navy Department and checked by "RE/Hediger."70 The meaning of the letters "RE" is not clear, but it is interesting-as we will discuss in a later chapter-that they also belong to a person connected to a very sensitive CIA monitoring operation. Just twenty-seven hours after being notified that an ex-marine had stated his intent to give up radar secrets, Navy Headquarters replied to Moscow.71 The final sentence of the navy cable underlines the importance that Washington attached to the news of Oswald's defection. The cable requested updates of developments on Oswald because of "CONTINUING INTEREST OF HQ, MARINE CORPS, AND US INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES." Centered underneath the bottom of these words were two more: "INTELLIGENCE MATTER."

CHAPTER TWO

Paper Trail in
Washington

At 7:59 A.M., October 31, 1959, a teletype printer at the State Department began its thumping clackety-clack, typing out Snyder's Confidential cable 1304 from the embassy in Moscow.' The news that Oswald's defection included an intent to commit espionage was now in the nation's capital, but it was Saturday morning, so official Washington was asleep or perhaps just getting up to go shopping or work in their gardens. The children were probably thinking about their costumes for an American pastime-it was Halloween. At the State Department message center, the personnel were probably changing over from the mid[night] shift to the day shift as Moscow cable 1304 was copied and assigned an initial internal distribution. It would have to wait until Monday for anyone to look at it.

At 9:20 A.M., Aline Mosby's UPI report flashed across the Washington news tickers, indicating that Oswald had spoken publicly about his defection in his Metropole hotel room a few hours earlier.2 Oswald had not told Mosby of his intention to hand over military secrets to the Soviets. That part of the story was classified, and was still sitting in a distribution box over in the State Department. The UPI story told only of Oswald's attempt to renounce his American citizenship and become a Soviet citizen.

It was the unclassified version of the defection that set off the alarm bell at the FBI. At 10:19 A.M., the stamp "RECEIVED DIRECTOR FBI" was placed on the back side of the Mosby UPI ticker and her story was handed to E. B. Reddy, who was on duty that morning.' Perhaps the ex-marine's announcement, "I will never return to the United States for any reason" grabbed Reddy's attention, or perhaps his FBI training led his eyes to rest on the sentence that stated that Oswald "would not say what he was planning to do here." The way the UPI ticker was worded led Reddy to conclude incorrectly that Oswald had held a "press conference" in his hotel room.' Reddy immediately decided to check out just who this defector was.

Reddy grabbed a standard FBI questionnaire for the records branch of the Identification Division and filled it out. In the "subject" box he wrote "Lee Harvey Oswald," placing a check in the block requesting "all references (subversive and nonsubver- sive)" and another check in the block "return to," where he added "Reddy [room] 1742."5 By lunchtime Paul Kupferschmidt of the records branch had managed to locate only Oswald's fingerprints. They had been taken when he entered the Marine Corps, a standard procedure for everyone entering the military, and the prints are always sent to the FBI. These fingerprints did not lead to much in the FBI's files. Kupferschmidt was able to advise Reddy only that "Oswald, a white male, born on October 18, 1939, at New Orleans, Louisiana, enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on October 24, 1956, at Dallas, Texas, and holds U.S. Marine Corps Number 1653230."

Using this information and the details of Mosby's UPI ticker, Reddy prepared a memorandum and attached a copy of the UPI report to his memo. He addressed this memo to Alan H. Belmont, head of the FBI's Intelligence Division. Either Belmont or, more likely, someone from his office came into the FBI that Saturday afternoon, because the back of the ticker also bears the stamp "REC'D BELMONT FBI-JUSTICE Oct 31 3:18 PM '59."6

Moscow: Sunday, November 1

On Sunday, the American press began to report a few more details about the defection in Moscow. Based on Saturday's UPI story, the New York office of the Associated Press (AP) called its Moscow correspondent, A. I. Goldberg, and asked him to verify the story. It was still Sunday in Moscow when Goldberg made the by then welltraveled journey to Oswald's hotel room, whereupon Oswald identi- fled himself but refused to grant an interview. Goldberg pressed for something, asking Oswald why he was going to remain in Russia. "I've got my reasons," Oswald responded, but refused to elaborate further. Goldberg then tried to dissuade Oswald from staying, and inquired whether Oswald knew Russian or had any particular skill he could use in the Soviet Union. According to Goldberg, Oswald replied that he did not know Russian, but that he could learn and that he could "make out."'

Goldberg apparently contacted someone in the American Embassy, for when he sent his story back to AP headquarters in New York on Sunday, it included the sentence, "The embassy urged him [Oswald] not to sign papers renouncing his American citizenship until he was sure the Soviet Union would accept him."8 Meanwhile, by Sunday, UPI bureau chief Bob Korengold had done some more calling as well, both to Oswald and to the American Embassy. The Sunday UPI story out of Moscow contained this new sentence attributed to Oswald: "I cannot make any statement until after I receive my Soviet citizenship. It might jeopardize my position-I mean the Soviet authorities might not want me to say anything."9

Korengold also was successful in reaching Richard Snyder and gleaning from him some of the details of what had occurred inside the embassy on Saturday morning. The Sunday UPI story also contained this paragraph:

The U.S. Embassy official [Snyder] said that he had advised Oswald to wait for the Soviet reply to his application for citizenship before giving up his American passport. He said Oswald would retain his full U.S. citizenship until he formally signed a document of renunciation and before he officially accepted Soviet citizenship.1°

The UPI Sunday story also contained one other interesting item buried in between parentheses: "His [Oswald's] sister-in-law in Fort Worth said: 'He said he wanted to travel a lot and talked about going to Cuba.' "

Oswald had often talked about Cuba when he served in the marines at Atsugi. "I know that Cuba interested him more than most other situations," Oswald's marine commander from Atsugi Naval Air Station later told the Warren Commission." While at Atsugi, Oswald used to "dream" about joining Castro's forces with his fellow marine Nelson Delgado." Four years later Oswald would try-and fail-to go to Cuba.

Washington: Monday, November 2

"A file concerning Oswald was opened," FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote to the Warren Commission in 1964, "at the time newspapers reported his defection to Russia in 1959, for the purpose of correlating information inasmuch as he was considered a possible security risk in the event he returned to this country."" Hoover explained that the Bureau's "first interest" was a direct result of the October 31 UPI story, the story that E. B. Reddy had checked into that same day and prepared a memorandum about. Mosby's UPI news ticker was attached to Reddy's memo and waiting at FBI headquarters Monday morning, when the brass arrived for work.

At 10:07 A.M. on Monday, November 2, the second most powerful man in the FBI and close friend of Director Hoover's, Clyde Anderson Tolsen, looked over Reddy's Saturday November 1 memorandum and UPI attachment.14 Not a skilled FBI investigator, Tolsen had been hired by Hoover in 1928 on the recommendation of then Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis, and within three years Hoover had promoted Tolsen from rookie agent to assistant director. There is little reason to conclude that Tolsen's immediate concern would have been much more than to make sure Hoover was aware of the Reddy memo and then pass it on. Tolsen initialed Reddy's memo and quickly sent it to the next most powerful man in the FBI- Cartha De Loach.

It is likely that Hoover and Tolsen had already seen the expanded UPI coverage that had appeared in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post." That expanded coverage included the results of UPI Bureau Chief Korengold's calls to Oswald and Snyder: Oswald saying he feared the Soviets wanted him to remain silent, and Snyder saying he had advised Oswald to get his Soviet citizenship before renouncing his American citizenship. The UPI ticker attached to Reddy's memo was, of course, from the Saturday wires, and Reddy's memo added a few more odds and ends such as Oswald's birth date, his New Orleans roots, and his entrance into the marines.